Wednesday, October 31, 2012

happy halloween!

I have to say, Halloween has always been a holiday I've looked forward to. This year I won't be celebrating it, but I've really been enjoying facebook creeping on my friends back in the US :) Here in Madrid, Halloween isn't super popular. It's been catching on the last few years, and  a few discos and pubs have Halloween parties and some of the bi-lingual schools have Halloween parties. I'll probably spend my evening watching "Hocus Pocus" and reminiscing on Halloweens past. 

2011



Friday, October 26, 2012

bonjour Paris!

I'm off to Paris for a long weekend with a friend! I can't wait to see all the things I missed during my super short stay in March. See you all on Monday, I'm going to be stuffing my face with French bread, macaroons, and red wine for the next 72 hours :)

march 2012

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

another WIN for colorado!

It's no secret that Colorado is one of the best states in the country. The mountains, the breweries, the people, and the music scene isn't so bad either. There have been some memorable bands out of Colorado (3OH3!, The Fray, Pretty Lights, One Republic), but I think this band has got to be my new favorite. Apparently they've been around for a while now but just recently released their first album. I've been playing this song by the Lumineers on repeat for about 2 weeks now. They also played this song in the season finale of Hart of Dixie, which is a great show in case anyone was wondering. And I'm not ashamed at all that I watch it.



fray concert @ red rocks, summer 2007





rio marg, best margarita EVER

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

homemade banana bread

A few weeks ago I found myself with about 6 overly ripe bananas and a huge craving for banana bread. My grandma makes the best banana bread I've ever eaten in my entire life, but I have to say, mine was pretty dang good too!


I just used a really basic recipe. It's super super super easy.

4 ripe bananas, smashed up
76 grams melted butter
175 grams white sugar
1 beaten egg
1 spoonful of vanilla
1 spoonful of baking soda
pinch of salt
192 grams of flour

Preheat oven to 175 Celsius 
mix butter and bananas
add sugar, egg, and vanilla
add salt and baking soda
add flour
pour into a buttered loaf pan and bake for 1 hour!

*Yes, I know these are in metric system measurements. I've had to get used to them. I don't own a measuring cup and I'm pretty sure they are impossible to find here.

Monday, October 22, 2012

house hunters madrid... otra vez

Well, I found myself once again in the rat race that is finding housing in Madrid. It's a long story, but for the best and I feel confidant that I found an even better place than where I'm living now (which is hard to beat)! I wanted to share some of the things I've encountered while looking for apartments here in Madrid... which has been 3 times in the past 9 months so I consider myself somewhat of a pro.

1. The "must haves" are much different here than in the US. I remember apartment hunting in California and we were hoping for a washer and dryer, maybe a nice little backyard. Here, the number one priority is a window. I saw at least 10 rooms that resembled small dungeons, with no sunlight. I actually lived in one for almost one month.

2. I no longer have reservations about sleeping on someone else's sheets. Here, most of the apartments I looked at came fully furnished, and almost always included bed linens. And in the spirit of saving a few bucks, I have been happily sleeping on someone else's sheets for the past 9 months.

3. I calculate everything in walking distance. And how close to multiple metro lines I can get. I spend my days walking all over the city, to and from classes and to and from metro stops so it's important that I'm not too far away from things. The last thing I want to do is have to run 10 minutes home in the pouring rain with 5 grocery bags.

4. Roommates are crucial. I had never lived with strangers before moving to Madrid, and I will most definitely not be doing it back in the US. But here there is such a big community of other ex-pats everyone has to live with strangers. It's also been really important to me to live with at least 1 Spanish person so I'm exposed to the language on a daily basis.

5. Ovens are not optional! The first place I lived only had a tiny little hot plate. Even though I wouldn't call myself Julia Childs, I like having the option to cook and bake.

a beautiful sunday rainbow in my beautiful new barrio 

Happy Monday :)

Friday, October 19, 2012

word.


reading my first book in Spanish... i think it was written for 7 year olds 

All I have to say is TGIF! Seriously, this week has been sooooo looooooong.  Yesterday I left my house at 8am and didn't get home til 11pm. Thankfully it's Friday, I'm done with classes for the week, and there's a lot of fun things going on this weekend. Even though I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I still managed to make some time for my Spanish education.


new words/phrases
1- piripi = tipsy or merry
2- siesta de carnero = literally means "ram nap" and is used when you take a siesta before lunch time... which I did last week 
3- un montón de... = a heap or pile of..., lots of something
4- pelota = lots of meanings, but is the word for someone who is a suck up. El es el pelota de la clase

I've learned more than this in the last two weeks, I just keep forgetting to write them down. Happy Friday everyone!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

homemade granola

The other day I had this really crazy craving for some granola go to in my daily breakfast of greek yogurt, and so far I haven't been able to find anything quite like good 'ole TJ's granola. So, I decided to make some myself. How hard could it be? Well...

oats, pumpkin seeds, almonds, raisins, maple syrup, vanilla

chop the almonds -- it's easy. don't believe what it says online

combine... this is where i made a mistake

bake for 20-25 minutes

should be delicious!

It was not so easy. I made the mistake of adding the raisins at the beginning. Did you know that if you bake raisins they will puff up and become dry? And taste like Cheetos made out of charcoal. I also didn't add enough maple syrup and vanilla, so it was pretty bland. But after picking out all the ruined raisins it still makes a nice addition of my breakfast! Next time I will omit the pumpkin seeds and add more dried fruit. 

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

why you should travel young

montana, december 2011

 I stumbled upon this article the other day, and I really love the message. I know that I fell into the yeah but... trap way too often in college. Sorority, boyfriends, friends... there were always just so many reasons why I didn't study abroad. And ultimately, it led to a mini quarter-life crisis where I decided the time was NOW and ended up in Madrid in January. It hasn't been easy, but I know this experience will impact my life a whole lot more than spending a year in a job I hated would.


WHY YOU SHOULD TRAVEL YOUNG

Photo by Geoff Heith
As I write this, I’m flying. It’s an incredible concept: to be suspended in the air, moving at two hundred miles an hour — while I read a magazine. Amazing, isn’t it?
I woke up at three a.m. this morning. Long before the sun rose, thirty people loaded up three conversion vans and drove two hours to the San Juan airport. Our trip was finished. It was time to go home. But we were changed.
As I sit, waiting for the flight attendant to bring my ginger ale, I’m left wondering why I travel at all. The other night, I was reminded why I do it — why I believe this discipline of travel is worth all the hassle.
I was leading a missions trip in Puerto Rico. After a day of work, as we were driving back to the church where we were staying, one of the young women brought up a question.
“Do you think I should go to graduate school or move to Africa?”
I don’t think she was talking to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t. But that didn’t stop me from offering my opinion.
I told her to travel. Hands down. No excuses. Just go.
She sighed, nodding. “Yeah, but…”
I had heard this excuse before, and I didn’t buy it. I knew the “yeah-but” intimately. I had uttered it many times before. The words seem innocuous enough, but are actually quite fatal.
Yeah, but …
… what about debt?
… what about my job?
… what about my boyfriend?
This phrase is lethal. It makes it sound like we have the best of intentions, when really we are just too scared to do what we should. It allows us to be cowards while sounding noble.
Most people I know who waited to travel the world never did it. Conversely, plenty of people who waited for grad school or a steady job still did those things after they traveled.
It reminded me of Dr. Eisenhautz and the men’s locker room.
Dr. Eisenhautz was a German professor at my college. I didn’t study German, but I was a foreign language student so we knew each other. This explains why he felt the need to strike up a conversation with me at six o’clock one morning.
I was about to start working out, and he had just finished. We were both getting dressed in the locker room. It was, to say the least, a little awkward — two grown men shooting the breeze while taking off their clothes.
“You come here often?” he asked. I could have laughed.
“Um, yeah, I guess,” I said, still wiping the crusted pieces of whatever out of my eyes.
“That’s great,” he said. “Just great.”
I nodded, not really paying attention. He had already had his adrenaline shot; I was still waiting for mine. I somehow uttered that a friend and I had been coming to the gym for a few weeks now, about three times a week.
“Great,” Dr. Eisenhautz repeated. He paused as if to reflect on what he would say next. Then, he just blurted it out. The most profound thing I had heard in my life.
“The habits you form here will be with you for the rest of your life.”
Photos by Geoff Heith
My head jerked up, my eyes got big, and I stared at him, letting the words soak into my half-conscious mind. He nodded, said a gruff goodbye, and left. I was dumbfounded.
The words reverberated in my mind for the rest of the day. Years later, they still haunt me. It’s true — the habits you form early in life will, most likely, be with you for the rest of your existence.
I have seen this fact proven repeatedly. My friends who drank a lot in college drink in larger quantities today. Back then, we called it “partying.” Now, it has a less glamorous name: alcoholism. There are other examples. The guys and girls who slept around back then now have babies and unfaithful marriages. Those with no ambition then are still working the same dead end jobs.
“We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle once said. While I don’t want to sound all gloom-and-doom, and I believe your life can turn around at any moment, there is an important lesson here: life is a result of intentional habits. So I decided to do the things that were most important to me first, not last.
After graduating college, I joined a band and traveled across North America for nine months. With six of my peers, I performed at schools, churches, and prisons. We even spent a month in Taiwan on our overseas tour. (We were huge in Taiwan.)
As part of our low-cost travel budget, we usually stayed in people’s homes. Over dinner or in conversation later in the evening, it would almost always come up — the statement I dreaded. As we were conversing about life on the road — the challenges of long days, being cooped up in a van, and always being on the move — some well-intentioned adult would say, “It’s great that you’re doing this … while you’re still young.”
Ouch. Those last words — while you’re still young — stung like a squirt of lemon juice in the eye (a sensation with which I am well acquainted). They reeked of vicarious longing and mid-life regret. I hated hearing that phrase.
I wanted to shout back,
“No, this is NOT great while I’m still young! It’s great for the rest of my life! You don’t understand. This is not just a thing I’m doing to kill time. This is my calling! My life! I don’t want what you have. I will always be an adventurer.”
In a year, I will turn thirty. Now I realize how wrong I was. Regardless of the intent of those words, there was wisdom in them.
As we get older, life can just sort of happen to us. Whatever we end up doing, we often end up with more responsibilities, more burdens, more obligations. This is not always bad. In fact, in many cases it is really good. It means you’re influencing people, leaving a legacy.
Youth is a time of total empowerment. You get to do what you want. As you mature and gain new responsibilities, you have to be very intentional about making sure you don’t lose sight of what’s important. The best way to do that is to make investments in your life so that you can have an effect on who you are in your later years.
I did this by traveling. Not for the sake of being a tourist, but to discover the beauty of life — to remember that I am not complete.
There is nothing like riding a bicycle across the Golden Gate Bridge or seeing the Coliseum at sunset. I wish I could paint a picture for you of how incredible the Guatemalan mountains are or what a rush it is to appear on Italian TV. Even the amazing photographs I have of Niagara Falls and the American Midwest countryside do not do these experiences justice. I can’t tell you how beautiful southern Spain is from the vantage point of a train; you have to experience it yourself. The only way you can relate is by seeing them.
While you’re young, you should travel. You should take the time to see the world and taste the fullness of life. Spend an afternoon sitting in front of the Michelangelo. Walk the streets of Paris. Climb Kilimanjaro. Hike the Appalachian trail. See the Great Wall of China. Get your heart broken by the “killing fields” of Cambodia. Swim through the Great Barrier Reef. These are the moments that define the rest of your life; they’re the experiences that stick with you forever.
Traveling will change you like little else can. It will put you in places that will force you to care for issues that are bigger than you. You will begin to understand that the world is both very large and very small. You will have a newfound respect for pain and suffering, having seen that two-thirds of humanity struggle to simply get a meal each day.
While you’re still young, get cultured. Get to know the world and the magnificent people that fill it. The world is a stunning place, full of outstanding works of art. See it.
You won’t always be young. And life won’t always be just about you. So travel, young person. Experience the world for all it’s worth. Become a person of culture, adventure, and compassion. While you still can.
Do not squander this time. You will never have it again. You have a crucial opportunity to invest in the next season of your life now. Whatever you sow, you will eventually reap. The habits you form in this season will stick with you for the rest of your life. So choose those habits wisely.
And if you’re not as young as you’d like (few of us are), travel anyway. It may not be easy or practical, but it’s worth it. Traveling allows you to feel more connected to your fellow human beings in a deep and lasting way, like little else can. In other words, it makes you more human.
That’s what it did for me, anyway.
Photos by Geoff Heith

Monday, October 8, 2012

words of wisdom from mr. mraz

I know I've really dropped the ball lately, and I apologize. The last week has been a little crazy and I've been picking up a lot of extra classes, not to mention I haven't really been doing very many interesting things lately. I have been listening to this song on repeat though, hoping to find some inspiration :) Happy Monday!!



Monday, October 1, 2012

weekend recap

On Friday night we threw my Canadian roommate a little going-away party. She's just moving apartments, but it was a big deal as she;s lived in my flat for 2 years! In honor of her, we deemed it a Canadian Tuxedo party complete with a Canadian playlist and Canadian stickers. We served Mexican appetizers and an Italian pasta salad (compliments of me and the new Italian roommate). The highlight of the night was probably when the people who live above us stopped by on their way out and were greeted by 20 people wearing denim on denim, looking silly, but not silly enough that they knew it was a theme party. They just thought we had bad fashion sense! I only have one photo to show for the whole night, I'm sorry! Just use your imagination :)

see what i mean? it's not really clear that it was theme party...
I then spent most of Saturday recovering from Friday and yesterday I took advantage of the beautiful weather by helping Katie move and ended the evening with cañas and bocadillas with a friend!